


the walls come crumbling down (ii)

by octaiviablake



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Bellarke, F/M, everyone is a mess after the war, this is a variation of my earlier echamy fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-04
Updated: 2015-03-04
Packaged: 2018-03-16 07:11:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3479057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/octaiviablake/pseuds/octaiviablake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the war is over, Bellamy and Clarke try to rebuild. (It involves group cuddles and trekking to the sea.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	the walls come crumbling down (ii)

By the time Clarke and Lexa storm the mountain, it’s too late for the 47. Bellamy finds the harvest chamber as fast as he can, raises an army of grounders with a war cry and a shelf of epinephrine, and he thinks maybe, just maybe, they can really do it.

He finds Jasper’s body first. Maya’s is next, just around the corner. The hallway to the harvest room is strewn with the bodies of his friends, blood coating the walls and the floor and their clothes and even his hands, too, when he stumbles to his knees and a terrible noise tears from his throat, half shout and half sob.

He has scratches for weeks across his scalp from where he claws at his head in anguish, trying to tear his hair out, trying to do something, anything, to atone.

He thought he was keeping them safe by sending them with their allies inside the mountain – instead, he’s gotten even more people killed, and his entire mission is pointless if all of his people are  _dead_.

It’s Clarke who drags him away from the hallway, who gets him back to the armory that they’d taken. She shakes him roughly, puts a rifle in his hands, and says, “We do not mourn the dead until the war is won, Bellamy.”

He swallows hard, dragging a hand across his face.  _There could still be others alive,_ he reminds himself. Monty wasn’t in the hallway, or Miller. He didn’t see Fox, he doesn’t think, (or was it her hand he’d seen, pale and still, the body covered in a thin sheet-)

Clarke shakes him again. “Are you with us?” she asks, her piercing eyes boring into his own.

He nods.

  

x

 

The mountain shakes when Raven detonates her makeshift bomb. A crack splits the floor in two, snaking down the hallway they’re running down. Clarke stumbles, her head twisted to watch their six as they dodge bullets and blindly return fire. He catches her by the arm easily.

It isn’t until after they get to the surface, Mount Weather crumbling behind them, that he realizes he hasn’t let go of her wrist.

 

x

 

Monty and Miller have survived, somehow, and by the way they cling together by the fire at night, he gathers that they had hacked their way out side by side. He gets it. He’s barely let Clarke out of his sight either.

Harper is gone, and Ash, and all of the youngest as well. Nyssa, Ember, Ginn – all dead. There are barely twenty of them left, and not all will live through the night. The battle took from them all, stole blood and life and purpose. They drift now, ghosts living in the shadow of Camp Jaha. The Arkers look at them with a strange mixture of pity and mistrust, and most of the survivors take to hiding away when not stuck in the medbay receiving blood transfusions or stitches.

After they got out, he’d only wanted to find one person. When he succeeded, when he found Octavia wrapped up in Lincoln’s arms and he enveloped her in his own embrace, he’d cried again. They’d made their way back to the Commander’s war camp for the night, Clarke trailing behind them silently. He held out a hand questioningly once he reached his assigned tent, and she took it without hesitating. They curled around each other for warmth and comfort, and succumbed to their exhaustion almost immediately.

She stays with him after that. The war is over now, but he doesn’t know if he’ll ever be done mourning. He goes through the motions each day, keeping his head down to avoid stares from the Alpha station Arkers. Clarke fits into his life with surprising ease, filling the cracks he hadn’t known existed. On the worst nights, they join the other kids in Monty and Miller’s tent, piling onto each other and just listening to everyone breath.

They’re alive. In those moments, with each other, it’s enough.

 

x

 

He knows she will leave eventually. She’s changed since the war, and life at Camp Jaha is not enough for her anymore. She gave up the responsibility of leading as soon as the battle was finished; there’s nothing tying her here anymore. It comes as no surprise when, two weeks after the war is over, he wakes to find her stuffing rations in a pack.

“So you’re leaving.”

She stiffens and turns to look at him, brow furrowed.

“Come with me,” she says hesitantly. 

He doesn’t answer right away. He lets his gaze drop to her bare shoulders and down her arms to where her new tattoos – courtesy of Commander Lexa - swirl across her skin.

“Where will you go?” he asks.

She swallows thickly.

“The sea. Maybe I’ll meet Lincoln’s friend Luna.”

He watches her for a moment, his breath steady and his heartbeat even. He is not surprised by her decision. 

“I can’t leave the others,” he says softly. Her eyes shut tightly, a displeased sigh escaping her lips.

“Then they should come too,” she finally replies.

Their eyes meet again over her pack. She gazes at him imploringly, and he realizes suddenly that he’s not alone in this – that she relies on him just as heavily, that after the horrors they went through he’s her constant just as she’s his.

He laughs quietly, for the first time in weeks.

“Okay.”

 

x

 

They leave three weeks after the war ends. There are twenty-five of them in all, every surviving delinquent choosing to go with them, plus Raven, Wick, and Lincoln. Abby stays behind. Unfinished business, she said. He leaves a radio and tells her to contact them when she’s done playing God.

 

x

 

It takes another two weeks to make the trek east, the whole group slowed by those with the worst injuries, but when they finally get there, everything else seems to fall away. The sea stretches as far as they can see, the horizon falling away until he can see nothing but an endless ocean of blue stretching into the sky.

It’s different for everyone; some run forwards and splash through the surf, shrieking with delight. Monty, still weak, drops his pack and sinks to his knees. Miller catches him, cradling him gently as they both release relieved breaths and lean into each other. Wick nudges Raven, mumbling something about helping her get out of her brace so they can go for a swim – she punches his arm, but she laughs, too.

Clarke’s hand slips into his as he watches his people.

“We’ll follow the coast south tomorrow, see if we can find Luna’s village,” he tells her, but she smiles up at him.

“Even if we don’t find it, I’m happy, Bellamy.” He takes a shaky breath.

“Yeah?”

She nods, leaning her head against his shoulder. “We’re a family now. I need nothing else. No more alliances and power plays.”

He presses a kiss to her hair and lets his head drop to rest on hers.

“Clarke, Bell, come get in here!” Octavia yells from the water. She squeals as Lincoln lifts her into his arms and swings her around.

“Come on,” Bellamy says, slipping his shoes off. “Can’t disappoint, can we?”

Her smile turns feral.

“Do you think we can talk them into playing a round of chicken?”

He snorts. “Lincoln would kick my ass.” He tugs on her arm, pulling her towards the water. “Come on, Clarke. Leave the fight behind for a while. Let’s just… live.”

She nods slowly, expression softening, and lets him pull her into the spray.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Originally this was an Echo/Bellamy fic (which is on my profile), but you guys are assholes and only bellarke fics get read so HERE YOU ARE (just kidding, I'm one of the assholes who reads like any good bellarke fic I can get my hands on). I'm on tumblr as octaiviablake, come say hi if you want.
> 
> Also who else would kill for a scene where Bellamy tells Abby to come find them once she's done playing God???? I would give a kidney for that


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